We Have Lost A Father

The Jewish world lost one of its greatest leaders, Rabbi Shach, whose concern encompassed every Jew.

"Moses grew up and went out to his brothers and he saw their suffering." (Exodus 2:11)

Moses' preparation for his role as a leader of the Children of Israel began with feeling the suffering of his brethren. That quality of identification with each individual is the hallmark of every true Jewish leader.

Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grozinski of Vilna, leader of pre-WW II Eastern European Jewry, was once told of an unlearned shoemaker who had lost one of his eight children. Reb Chaim Ozer was inconsolable. Those present could not understand the extent of his tears. Not long before, Rabbi Grozinski had lost his only child, a daughter who was bitten by a rabid dog shortly after becoming engaged. Yet even then he had not cried so bitterly. Indeed, he had continued writing halachic responsa almost until the moment of her death.

"When my daughter passed away," Rabbi Grozinski explained, "I could console myself with the knowledge that she was going to a better world. That is clear to me. But I don't know that the World-to-Come is as real to the shoemaker. I'm crying for his pain, not my own."

Rabbi Elazar Menachem Shach, who passed away Friday, Nov 2, was a worthy heir to the mantle of leadership once worn by Rabbi Grozinski. He never sought the role. He needed no other joy than that of studying and teaching Torah, and until the age of 70 he did nothing else.

As a young yeshiva student, he owned only the clothes on his back. His pants were so full of holes that when tested for admission to the Slutsk Yeshiva he wore them inside out to conceal how threadbare they were. When he married, he and his wife did not even own a closet. Two pegs on the wall sufficed for all their possessions.

Rabbi Shach was available whenever a Jew anywhere in the world needed his advice.

He became the guide of Orthodox Jewry around the world because the community sought his guidance. He was neither elected nor appointed. An entire community simply knew, as if intuitively, that he was now their shepherd.

The burden was enormous. It meant being available whenever a Jew anywhere in the world needed his advice. Each issue, whether it involved an individual or an entire community, was weighed carefully. He consulted with experts and sought to be continually updated about changing circumstances. When in his late 90s he could no longer give each matter that same thorough consideration, Rabbi Shach retired from public activity.

They turned to him - individuals, yeshiva heads, and communal leaders - because they knew that whatever he said was the absolute truth as he saw it - a truth shaped only by the Torah to which he had devoted his whole life.

Rabbi Shach was the antithesis of modern political leaders, zigzagging according to the advice of their pollsters. No suspicion of personal interest attached to him. A wealthy man once offered his son-in-law $100,000 for the latter's yeshiva if Rabbi Shach would write a letter of recommendation. Rabbi Shach refused. A leader, he felt, cannot afford to be beholden to anyone.

Money and honor were meaningless to him. All he cared about was truth.

Money and honor were meaningless to him. At a time when the media was filled with stories of Rabbi Shach's political power, a secular journalist who interviewed him was astounded by the way he lived: a cot for a bed, bookshelves made of the packing crates, and a bare bulb in the living room.

The greatness of a Jew is measured by how many are included within the ambit of his "I." God Himself is referred to as hagadol (the Great) because His concern extends to every living being. Similarly, the gadol hador (the great man of the generation) is one whose concern encompasses every Jew.

In his late 80s, Rabbi Shach required surgery to remove a growth on his leg. The surgeon told him that general anesthesia would be required. Rabbi Shach would not agree because the anesthesia would cloud his thinking, and he could not afford that. He told the surgeon that he could deal with the pain. Students pinioned his leg to prevent any involuntary movement when the surgeon cut into his flesh.

During the same period in his life, he was informed that a helicopter had crashed, killing four soldiers. He burst into tears. He did not ask whether the soldiers were religious or not. That was irrelevant. They were Jews.

His own physical pain he could control, but the pain at the death of a Jew, he could not control.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of Rabbi Shach's passing is that so many Jews do not know what a loving father they have lost.

I've been striving to get more into spirituality. But it seems that every time I make some progress, I find myself slipping right back to where I started. I'm getting discouraged and feel like a failure. Can you help?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Spiritual slumps are a natural part of spiritual growth. There is a cycle that people go through when at times they feel closer to God and at times more distant. In the words of the Kabbalists, it is "two steps forward and one step back." So although you feel you are slipping, know that this is a natural process. The main thing is to look at your overall progress (over months or years) and be able to see how far you've come!

This is actually God's ingenious way of motivating us further. The sages compare this to teaching a baby how to walk. When the parent is holding on, the baby shrieks with delight and is under the illusion that he knows how to walk. Yet suddenly, when the parent lets go, the child panics, wobbles and may even fall.

At such times when we feel spiritually "down," that is often because God is letting go, giving us the great gift of independence. In some ways, these are the times when we can actually grow the most. For if we can move ourselves just a little bit forward, we truly acquire a level of sanctity that is ours forever.

Here is a practical tool to help pull you out of the doldrums. The Sefer HaChinuch speaks about a great principle in spiritual growth: "The external awakens the internal." This means that although we may not experience immediate feelings of closeness to God, eventually, by continuing to conduct ourselves in such a manner, this physical behavior will have an impact on our spiritual selves and will help us succeed. (A similar idea is discussed by psychologists who say: "Smile and you will feel happy.")

That is the power of Torah commandments. Even if we may not feel like giving charity or praying at this particular moment, by having a "mitzvah" obligation to do so, we are in a framework to become inspired. At that point we can infuse that act of charity or prayer with all the meaning and lift it can provide. But if we'd wait until being inspired, we might be waiting a very long time.

May the Almighty bless you with the clarity to see your progress, and may you do so with joy.

In 1940, a boatload 1,600 Jewish immigrants fleeing Hitler's ovens was denied entry into the port of Haifa; the British deported them to the island of Mauritius. At the time, the British had acceded to Arab demands and restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine. The urgent plight of European Jewry generated an "illegal" immigration movement, but the British were vigilant in denying entry. Some ships, such as the Struma, sunk and their hundreds of passengers killed.

If you seize too much, you are left with nothing. If you take less, you may retain it (Rosh Hashanah 4b).

Sometimes our appetites are insatiable; more accurately, we act as though they were insatiable. The Midrash states that a person may never be satisfied. "If he has one hundred, he wants two hundred. If he gets two hundred, he wants four hundred" (Koheles Rabbah 1:34). How often have we seen people whose insatiable desire for material wealth resulted in their losing everything, much like the gambler whose constant urge to win results in total loss.

People's bodies are finite, and their actual needs are limited. The endless pursuit for more wealth than they can use is nothing more than an elusive belief that they can live forever (Psalms 49:10).

The one part of us which is indeed infinite is our neshamah (soul), which, being of Divine origin, can crave and achieve infinity and eternity, and such craving is characteristic of spiritual growth.

How strange that we tend to give the body much more than it can possibly handle, and the neshamah so much less than it needs!